Characterizing the Safety of Self-Driving Vehicles: A Fault Containment Protocol for Functionality Involving Vehicle Detection

Safety has been ranked as the number one concern for the acceptance and adoption of autonomous vehicles, and understandably so since safety has some of the most complex requirements in the development of self-driving vehicles. Traditionally, automotive safety follows functional safety concepts as detailed in the standard ISO 26262. However, autonomous driving safety goes beyond ISO 26262, and includes other safety concepts such as safety of the intended functionality and multiagent safety. In this paper, we characterize the concept of safety for self-driving vehicles, and we discuss fault-tolerant techniques in the design of safe autonomous vehicles. We also propose a fault-containment protocol for the perception system of an autonomous vehicle that involves vehicle detection.